August Gregorius, in 1871, father
of my father’s, father’s father left
Sweden’s shore, Amerika bound, decades
before the harbor maiden raised her beacon
to refugees and immigrants, seeking a dream
~kat
August Stanza a Day Challenge: A short 3,4, or 5 line poem no syllable counts of rhymes, starting with the word ‘August’ on the first day. The last word of the poem will be the first word of day two’s poem, and so on until the end of the month.
The Sweater
Sometimes I wrap myself in thin
green, shetland, stiff with age, smelling
of moth balls and stale dust,
to remember. It’s all I have left
of you…a sweater that’s starting to
unravel along the edges. Like you,
those final years, unraveling,
spiraling into an abyss so deep,
none of us could have saved you.
I know that now. It’s strange.
Your sweater, just an old wooly
rag really, hints of Old Spice
aftershave wafting, when I press my
face into its course, wiry fibers, has
saved me from the edge more
than a few times. I guess that’s why
I can’t part with it.
I suppose I never will.
~kat
For NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 26. Prompt: write a poem that includes images that engage all five senses.
Day 22 – NaPoWriMo 2018 Prompt: take one of the following statements of something impossible, and then write a poem in which the impossible thing happens:
The sun can’t rise in the west.
A circle can’t have corners.
Pigs can’t fly.
The clock can’t strike thirteen.
The stars cannot rearrange themselves in the sky.
A mouse can’t eat an elephant.
You know me. when given a list and a choice, I generally choose them all. It’s a running theme.
that day when pigs flew, it’s true,
first class, no less, to avoid
all the mice that they’d trapped in
their wheels, churning in circles
producing square profits for
bottom line trawlers, that day
when stars realigned and the
mice jumped their traps, devouring
the elephants in the room
all this, they did, just past noon,
at thirteen zero zero;
mice, in chorus, were heroes
that day we’ll remember,
when news traveled the wires
dawning bright, east to the west
a sweeping blue wave changed
history’s course, what a day
when impossible dreamers
dreamed dreams once again
and tea bagging cups dug graves,
their own, with silvery spoons
that day, the pigs flew the coups
~kat
it turns out we were right to burn
our bras in 1968; to let our ta-tas fly
free… 2018 science has determined our
lymph nodes need a break from hard-wired
push up constriction, elastic straps and
padding…alas we are justified, no longer
chided for those days of our restless
discontent over corrupt leaders, the
establishment, unjust wars (our friends were
dying), our love of free love, pot and folk
ballads, wild psychedelic trips, mania, decades
of mad hazy memories, idealistic musings, we got
a few things right, the bra thing at least, except,
I still wear one every day, clogging, constricting my
lymphs, ignoring science, I’m rebellious that way,
it’s a habit, like flossing, not to mention
the true reason for burning them, and the
fact that no bras were actually burned or harmed,
but a metaphor…a mantra, “Let’s judge
ourselves as people”…it turns out
we were right to burn then…
we’re still burning
~kat
My rebellion poem for NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 20, prompt: write a poem that involves rebellion in some way. I am most comfortable with rhyming metered verses and lines. Testing out free verse, and what I consider to be streaming consciousness…I hope it doesn’t come off as rambling. Though it is not necessarily a bad thing to ramble. It might grow on me. 🙂
For NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 19 Prompt: write a paragraph that briefly recounts a story, describes the scene outside your window, or even give directions from your house to the grocery store. Now try erasing words from this paragraph to create a poem or, alternatively, use the words of your paragraph to build a new poem. I used bold text to show you which words I lifted from the prose to create the poem that follows.
This prompt plays out like a deconstructed haibun, using free verse rather than a tanka or haiku/senryu. It also reminds me of doing “black/white out” poetry. At any rate it is a fun way to create a poem. This is my day in day out. Wrote this little break out on my lunch break…back to the grind in 3-2-1.
I spend my daylight hours in a cubicle under a dropped ceiling fitted with fluorescent lights. There is a vent above my head that grinds and blows intermittently throughout the day. I believe that the stale air blasting is laced with dust and black mold from the shadowy crawl spaces in the upper mezzanine partly because I burst into coughing and sneezing fits when the HVAC system kicks in. I heard that the company decided not to do a mold sweep of the building because it didn’t fit in with their ever shrinking budget. Such is life in corporate America where the shareholders and executives are king and the workers are paupers, slaving day in and day out, pinching pennies from the company’s bulging profits. I would likely go crazy, perhaps I’m already a bit mad, if it were not for the floor to ceiling picture windows that flank the outer wall of my cube. At least I can glance out briefly, when my nose is not buried in a spreadsheet and watch the world drift by. It’s a small perk that makes coming to work at dawn and leaving at dusk, bearable. Sometimes, when I dream at night, I dream of dusty gray cubicles but sometimes I dream in color.
daylight in a cubicle fitted
with fluorescent lights,
stale air laced with dust and
black mold burst, coughing,
sneezing mold sweep,
ever shrinking is life, where workers
slaving day in and day out, pinching
pennies, go crazy. windows flank
the outer wall. I glance out
briefly, watch the world drift;
sometimes, when I dream
I dream in color.
~kat
like mercury colliding... 